Photo credit: Steve Kaye
Brett Carson is a composer, pianist, improviser, poet, and theater artist based in Berkeley CA. His compositional work, which has been described as "fascinatingly intense" (Stephen Smoliar, SF Classical Voice), explores the juxtaposition of a gleefully chaotic plurality of musical approaches. This is combined with a penchant for surreal world-building and an exploration of the bizarre and uncanny, along with a commitment to writing for the voice and the stage.
Notable projects include the song cycle Mysterious Descent (2017) which was partially written in an invented language "Kôktimo", Just Visiting (X-Ray Vision) (2018), a post-apocalyptic chamber opera, The Killing Jar (2021) a dystopian meditation on the COVID-19 pandemic, and The Secret Life of the Paramecium (2022), a multimedia song cycle combining the tarot and microbiology. His most recent project, Tell Me a Bedtime Story, ABRAXAS, is an experimental opera exploring Gnostic ideas that was created in collaboration with the Friction Quartet, and saw its premiere in July of 2024 at the Dresher Ensemble Studio in Oakland.
In addition to his compositional work, he enjoys a career as a pianist and synthesist, having performed internationally in the realms of free improvisation, contemporary classical music, jazz, and rock. Performing venues and festivals include the Chicago Jazz Festival, Sons d'hiver, Roulette, the Barbican, the Kennedy Center, the Broad (LA), and SESC Pompeia (Brazil). He has worked with a wide variety of composers/performers including Bill Baird, Brian Baumbusch, Nicolas Collins, Sidney Corbett, Vinny Golia, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Roscoe Mitchell, Bill Noertker, Zeena Parkins, Rent Romus, Elliott Sharp, and William Winant. From 2019-20, he performed as the pianist for the legendary jazz unit the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Press Quotes:
"[The Secret Life of the Paramecium] is the rare project that takes gigantic stylistic swings, and yet brims with confidence and intention. It's also oddly timely, touching on the power we surrender to microscopic life in an era defined by the effects of COVID and spectral evils."
- Karl Evangelista, guitarist/composer/improviser
"...the real fun comes by way of an extended solo from pianist Brett Carson. Pointillism tackles the void as Carson unspools the kind of solo that suggests a center rather than establishing one. This an impressive highlight from a player worth seeking out."
- Steve Feeney, artsfuse.org - review of "The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris" by the Art Ensemble of Chicago
"...Carson mixes modern classical music, traditional song form, and old-timey melodrama. It’s all presented with a sense of high drama but there are also touches of silliness and absurdity..."
- wedgeradio.wordpress.com
"Brett Carson’s sonoverse is both multi and meta. You’ve gotten up from a totally normal chair, walked down a totally normal street, and without noticing you’ve ended up circling the nucleus of your own consciousness along six different orbits simultaneously. Blink again, and that same system is now split into twelve uneven parts that are nevertheless identical."
- David Katz, vocalist/composer/improviser
"Confusing, absurd and occasionally beautiful – like existence itself, and the weird myths we create to explain it."
- Lexi Glass, KFJC
Notable projects include the song cycle Mysterious Descent (2017) which was partially written in an invented language "Kôktimo", Just Visiting (X-Ray Vision) (2018), a post-apocalyptic chamber opera, The Killing Jar (2021) a dystopian meditation on the COVID-19 pandemic, and The Secret Life of the Paramecium (2022), a multimedia song cycle combining the tarot and microbiology. His most recent project, Tell Me a Bedtime Story, ABRAXAS, is an experimental opera exploring Gnostic ideas that was created in collaboration with the Friction Quartet, and saw its premiere in July of 2024 at the Dresher Ensemble Studio in Oakland.
In addition to his compositional work, he enjoys a career as a pianist and synthesist, having performed internationally in the realms of free improvisation, contemporary classical music, jazz, and rock. Performing venues and festivals include the Chicago Jazz Festival, Sons d'hiver, Roulette, the Barbican, the Kennedy Center, the Broad (LA), and SESC Pompeia (Brazil). He has worked with a wide variety of composers/performers including Bill Baird, Brian Baumbusch, Nicolas Collins, Sidney Corbett, Vinny Golia, George Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, Roscoe Mitchell, Bill Noertker, Zeena Parkins, Rent Romus, Elliott Sharp, and William Winant. From 2019-20, he performed as the pianist for the legendary jazz unit the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Press Quotes:
"[The Secret Life of the Paramecium] is the rare project that takes gigantic stylistic swings, and yet brims with confidence and intention. It's also oddly timely, touching on the power we surrender to microscopic life in an era defined by the effects of COVID and spectral evils."
- Karl Evangelista, guitarist/composer/improviser
"...the real fun comes by way of an extended solo from pianist Brett Carson. Pointillism tackles the void as Carson unspools the kind of solo that suggests a center rather than establishing one. This an impressive highlight from a player worth seeking out."
- Steve Feeney, artsfuse.org - review of "The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris" by the Art Ensemble of Chicago
"...Carson mixes modern classical music, traditional song form, and old-timey melodrama. It’s all presented with a sense of high drama but there are also touches of silliness and absurdity..."
- wedgeradio.wordpress.com
"Brett Carson’s sonoverse is both multi and meta. You’ve gotten up from a totally normal chair, walked down a totally normal street, and without noticing you’ve ended up circling the nucleus of your own consciousness along six different orbits simultaneously. Blink again, and that same system is now split into twelve uneven parts that are nevertheless identical."
- David Katz, vocalist/composer/improviser
"Confusing, absurd and occasionally beautiful – like existence itself, and the weird myths we create to explain it."
- Lexi Glass, KFJC